EVENT RESULTS EVENT NOTEBOOK POINTS AFTER EVENT ROUND-BY-ROUND RESULTS FINAL SPORTSMAN RESULTS

FRI. GALLERY SAT. GALLERY SUN GALLERY

 

 

 

SATURDAY NOTEBOOK – THE CALL OUT IS IN THE BOOKS, FUEL CARS STRETCHING THEIR SEA-LEVEL LEGS

1 – SMITH GETS HIS REVENGE IN GETTRX CALLOUT - There’s an old suggestion in bar fighting that proposes the best strategy is to pick out the biggest one in the bar and knock them out, making the rest of the scrappers easier to deal with. 

In Matt Smith’s case, the biggest one picked him out. It is the same scenario in reverse order: Smith knocked Gaige Herrera out in the first round of the GETTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle, and he went on to win the high-dollar race within a race. 

Smith, a six-time champion, set a new track E.T. record on Saturday, defeating teammate Jianna Evaristo in the final round.

In the final round, Smith went 6.655 seconds at 204.23 mph on his Denso Auto Parts Buell, defeating Evaristo’s 6.703 at 203.77.

“(Jianna) is going to be an excellent rider, and I’m proud of what she’s doing. Before the final, I didn’t cut her any slack. We’ve both struggled to cut a light here, but I still told her I was going to spank her.”

“I’m really thrilled. This is my first win in the GETTRX Callout but my third win in a specialty race,” Smith said. “We’ve had a tough year. We haven’t won a race, but we’ve been good on Saturdays. Now, we’ve got to be good on Sunday. This is a big payday, and it means a lot, so I have to say thanks to Steve Bryson and GETTRX for putting this deal on.”
 

 

2 – PROCK GETS #2FAST2TASTY WIN #6 – Somewhere along the line, driving an NHRA fuel Funny Car and winning a Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge is supposed to be an overwhelming battle. Austin Prock is doing his best to prove these thoughts wrong.

Prock drove to his sixth Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge of 2024, stopping Blake Alexander in the final round. Did we also mention he’s a rookie Funny Car driver?

Prock’s Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge victory was his fifth consecutive. In becoming the only driver other than Top Fuel pro Justin Ashley to win five straight times in the unique bonus series, Prock put himself in position to double up for the fourth time this year as winner of the #2Fast2Tasty and the main event in the same race weekend.

“We definitely struggled yesterday, but we turned it around today,” said Prock, who went 3.872 at 335.07 earlier in the day. “Six wins, that’s 20 points, which is a whole round, and as we’ve seen, every point matters.
 
“We backed off on Q3, but that was a nice run (in the finals). That’s the run we wanted. I know I’m happy, and I hope [my crew] is also happy. To win these bonus races is a big confidence booster. It’s more money for our crew and more points for the team. Both are important.”

The Top Fuel and Pro Stock portions were intramural skirmishes, with Shawn Langdon beating Doug Kalitta in a Kalitta Motorsports final. Pro Stock was more of the same as Troy Coughlin Jr. beat Jeggie Coughlin in an all-Elite Motorsports final. 

 “This is the first win this season for me in this bonus race, and it’s nice to get it out of the way and to race Doug in the final is even more special,” Langdon said. “We’ve got two Kalitta dragsters that are competitive, and in the final, we made a good run. In Seattle last week, we didn’t qualify where we wanted to, so it was nice to come here and make some nice runs to get some confidence for Sunday. Every little point matters and it’s nice for our crew to win these deals. It’s a nice reward for all they do.”

“This was tons of fun. It’s fantastic facing Uncle Jeg, especially at this majestic facility in front of these awesome fans,” Coughlin added. Our team has worked their tails off to make these cars competitive. We’ve struggled a bit on race day, but it’s coming together. 
 
“I didn’t think that [.024 reaction time] would be enough, but it was this time. I’ve thought about racing with [Jeg] for about 28 years. It doesn’t matter if it’s a local race, a big bracket race, or NHRA Pro Stock. It is great to race against him. To do this is a dream fulfilled.”

 

 

3 – NITRO REMAINS UNCHANGED - The leaderboard remained unchanged in the nitro ranks Saturday at the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals as Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel) and Bob Tasca III (Funny Car) held their top spots. 

Kalitta, in addition to securing his 58th career No. 1 qualifier, finished runner-up in the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. He kept his No. 1 spot on the strength of Friday’s track-record 3.649 at 336.40 mph.

“On that last run in Q4, we pushed a bit harder and it didn’t hold so Shawn (Langdon) ended up with the [Mission Challenge] win,” Kalitta said. “Even though I ran a 3.64 there were other cars that were close, and tomorrow I don’t think it will be much hotter, so I expect a real battle. 

“I’m actually a bit relieved because we now know how hard we can push and that should be a bit tomorrow. You might get one lucky round, but you need to be on your game. Shawn pushes me and he keeps me on my game, especially now that both of our cars are as close as possible. He’s one of the best out there and he’s one up on me right now.”

Clay Millican jumped to second with a 3.664 at a track-record 338.26, and Brittany Force qualified third after going 3.668 at 335.57. 

Despite a late qualifying charge from Matt Hagan, Tasca hung on to the No. 1 position with Friday’s run of 3.839 at 338.43. It gave Tasca his second No. 1 qualifier of the season and the 18th in his career.  

“We tried to run 340 mph this morning, and it nearly put me into the wall so on the last run we slowed it way down to make a full pull,” Tasca said. “I say this all the time but you could take a fan in the stands, put them in one of these cars and tell them to keep it straight, and on most runs they could do it. That was Q4 where the car did exactly what it was supposed to do.

“We’ve had some vibrant conversations in our trailer and a lot of discussions about going 340 mph. We have parts that are faster, but we had to be smart. This car is set up to win a championship and when it warms up, like today, we need to be smart.”

4 – PLENTY OF CHANGE IN PRO STOCK – In Pro Stock qualifying, Greg Anderson overtook Matt Hartford in the car division while Matt Smith’s championship day only got better. 

Anderson didn't have a particularly great first day of qualifying, but more than made up for it on the second day. He recorded the No. 1 spot for the fifth time this season with a 6.491, 211.20 run. Pro Stock’s winningest driver now has 128 career No. 1 qualifiers. 

“I love coming here because it’s so fast, but we have to rely on Mother Nature to do it for us,” Anderson said. “I love it when she shines on us like today and you can throw everything at it. I didn’t have a great day yesterday but today we had a turn of fortune. We made two great runs today.  

“We have a good book on this place and when you come here, you don’t have to de-tune it. That’s a tribute to the guys in our engine shop. I love it here, from the track to the people – everyone is happy.”

Points leader Dallas Glenn took second with a 6.497 at 211.00, and Eric Latino is third with a 6.501 at 210.60.

Smith, a six-time Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion, set a track E.T. record Saturday at Sonoma Raceway, winning the GETTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle All-Star Call-Out and qualifying No. 1.   

Jianna Evaristo qualified second in PSM with a career-best 6.674 at 204.54 – the second-fastest pass in class history – and Gaige Herrera is third after going 6.688 at 202.55, which took place in the opening round of the Call-Out.

 

 

5 – CAPPS’ NEW INITIATIVE - Ron Capps is racing this weekend with the GearWrench logo prominently displayed on the rear quarter panels and hood area of the NAPA AutoCare Toyota GR Supra Funny Car.

As part of a new initiative with Capps’ longtime partner NAPA Auto Parts, the bold yellow GearWrench logo will adorn Capps’ machine during this special cross-promotional campaign. NAPA recently launched a new program which highlights a selected ‘VIP Supplier Partner of the Weekend’ at various motorsports events. This program allows NAPA to create additional exposure and sales for a NAPA-affiliated partner through its involvement in motorsports. At this weekend’s event at Sonoma Raceway, Capps is spotlighting the GearWrench brand. 

“As the official hand tool of Ron Capps Motorsports, our fans have heard me brag about GearWrench tools quite a bit,” said Capps, a 76-time NHRA national-event winner. “Our race this weekend in Sonoma will be a special one for us as NAPA Auto Parts is helping us to showcase GearWrench tools, which is a relationship I’m incredibly proud of. We’ve exclusively used GearWrench in our pit since the start of the 2021 NHRA season, and they played a big part in helping us to go back-to-back with world championships in 2021 and 2022." 

"It’s always really cool as a racer and a team owner when you not only have two really great partners supporting your operation, but those same partners work together to support each other. This not only allows us to help support the long-term retail relationship with GearWrench and NAPA Auto Parts but also showcases the B2B opportunities available out here in NHRA drag racing."

6 – THE “OTHER” STREAK ON THE LINE - With Gaige Herrera’s Pro Stock Motorcycle winning streak ending last weekend in Seattle, the Elite Motorsports team now has the longest run. The Richard Freeman-owned team brings a five-race win streak into Sonoma and has seven wins in the first 11 events on the Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series’ 20-race schedule.

Three of those seven wins, and two in the streak of five, belong to six-time world champion Jeg Coughlin Jr., who came out of retirement after three years to return to Pro Stock competition at the beginning of this season. 

Coughlin picked up his first win of the season at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas. Jeg Jr. then won the Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn., and enters this weekend with a chance to sweep the “Western Swing” after racing to victory from the No. 10 position at Pacific Raceways near Seattle.

“Elite Motorsports has done well as a whole,” Coughlin said. “It’s a testament to our team, our stamina, our abilities, our people and our crew chiefs. The cars have become efficient, consistent and have been printing better time slips so a tip of the hat to our crew chief bank for making this happen. They’re really working hard and trying to keep us up front.”

“Mark Ingersoll, Tim Freeman, Chase Freeman, Kyle Bates, Anthony Lum, Jake Hariston, Richard Freeman, our entire team really gets a big high five,” Coughlin said. “They made fine-tune changes in Seattle and when the car should have been slowing down in those second and third rounds, we were pecking at it and making it quicker. Hopefully we can carry that over and keep the streak going in Sonoma.”     

 

 

7 – REBOUNDED - Overshadowed by the vicious Ron Capps explosion and crash in Seattle, two pairs later Dave Richards put his Funny car into the wall at Pacific Raceways.

Richards' car shook the tires and then took a hard right turn into the wall, causing damage to the chassis and body. Fortunately, the racing community rallied around Richards and his team.

“We don’t have a backup car yet, so it was stressful, and we thought at one point we weren’t going to make it this weekend. But the racing community is the best,” Richards said. “Randy and Kim Parker, they have an Alcohol Funny Car team and a chassis shop in Washington. They moved their schedules around to get our car in immediately. Our whole team was there trying to make it happen. Just goes to show you, never give up and things can come together! We’re more than excited to be racing in Sonoma this weekend.”

Thanks to the Parkers, Richards has an opportunity to improve on what his team has been building this season. Racing the full Mission Foods NHRA season for the first time, Richards and the Versatran team have had some growing pains that seemed to be somewhat alleviated by a decision to front-half their car just three races ago. 

8 – NOT HER DAY - Brittany Force struggled Saturday with times of 3.962 and 4.948 from her Monster Energy Chevy dragster.   

Nevertheless, the two-time Top Fuel world champion will start Sunday from the No. 3 position with a critical first-round match against Josh Hart, the driver trying to knock her out of the No. 10 spot in the standings.

"We were trying to push it and it just didn’t hold,” said the 38-year-old daughter of sidelined Funny Car champion John Force. “We need to go rounds on Sunday. We need to make some progress on race day so we can move up in the points and earn our place in the Countdown.

“In the last few races, we have seen a big move in our qualifying (performance),” said the 16-time tour winner and former Rookie of the Year. “We are qualified third, and our goal was to be Top 5, so we are right where we need to be. Now all we need to do is turn on some win lights.”

 

10 - SONOMA HISTORY - LOOKING BACK AT THE 1989 CRASHFEST

 

 

FRIDAY NOTEBOOK - BACK TO THE WEST COAST WITH SMACK-TALKING BIKERS 

1 - MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH—Bob Tasca III was definitely going for it Friday Night. The speed merchant of the preseason was looking to make his mark during what was expected to be the most-advantageous qualifying session at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals. 

Tasca was looking to top 340 miles per hour in NHRA competition, just as he did in the PRO Superstar Shootout back in February. Instead, he claimed the provisional No. 1 qualifying position with a run of 3.839 seconds at only 338.43 miles per hour. 

"I've never been so disappointed to run 3.83 and 338 mph," Tasca said with a smile. "We really wanted to give the fans a 340 mph run. I believe it was right on our run in Bradenton, but you're dealing with a 15-knot headwind. And no matter how you want to look at it, it worked against us."

Tasca's Motorcraft team battled the elements to the point they gave his Mustang copious amounts of spoiler to combat what they believed was going to be another issue. 

"We were a little concerned that the track could dry out with this kind of wind," Tasca explained. "The spray that they put down dries out. It's not the same as no wind. So we had a little bit more spoiler in it than we had in Bradenton. And then we're dealing with a gusting 15-knot wind, which worked against us."

Despite all the elements working against him and his Funny Car, Tasca did manage to put a .024 advantage between him and No. 2 Ron Capps. Saturday's forecast calls for temperatures 10 degrees cooler than Friday, and Tasca will likely take another shot at 340. 

"I would say we need a track temperature where we can run 84. 83 to 84, which is what you saw out here right now," Tasca said. "I think the track will be well over 100 degrees tomorrow. Even if it's 75 degrees out, depending on the cloud cover. We ran 338 in Charlotte and 338 in Seattle, but that was almost identical to the track temperature we had just now. We'll see. I can tell you one thing, there will not be a time that we won't try to do it if we think we can do it."

 

 

2 - LEADOFF HITTER - The first pair of race cars in any given session signifies those cars usually had a rough go of things in the previous session. Doug Kalitta's 4.946, 143.31 pass in the first qualifying session was as rough of a crack at Sonoma Raceway as a car of Kalitta's caliber could get.

In his evening round, Kalitta stopped the clocks to the tune of 3.649 seconds at 336 miles an hour. The run was good enough for a Sonoma track record. If the mark holds, it will be Kalitta's fifth No. 1 of the season and the 58th of his career. 

"I got my first win here, I have a lot of cool history, and that definitely -- that run there -- was a lot of fun," Kalitta said. "Alan Johnson puts a lot of thought into everything about that tune-up on my car.

"Alan Johnson, he is one bad dude. To be able to pull that one off, it was impressive for my seat because I got down at the end, I'm like, "Wow, that was.hauling.'

"There were some pretty good runs in that session, so I'm just glad we held on for the top spot."

Knowing Johnson's aggressive mindset, Kalitta had a clue his Mac Tools dragster was loaded for bear. 

"These kind of conditions ...  [Johnson is] in there tweaking on that car until he started, so he just has a ton of experience, and every time you go up to the line he's pushing it right to the limit to see what the thing will hold it's pretty impressive to have the opportunity to work with him."

Kalitta figured that as the session ran into the night, the optimum conditions might disappear. Running first isn't the optimal situation, but Kalitta used the timing to his advantage. 

"I was actually kind of happy about running first, but you never can tell," Kallita said. "It's a crazy balance these crew chiefs try to figure out with these things in the track."

 

 

 

 

3 - TURNAROUND IN MOTION - Matt Hartford took the provisional No. 1 spot in Pro Stock with a run of 6.515 seconds at 210 miles per hour. If the run holds, it will be his first No. 1 of a challenging season and fifth of his career. 

"The GETTRX Camaro is starting to come around, if anybody's followed our season," Hartford said. "It almost feels like it's our first race. We've not been good this year. But as everybody keeps telling me, all my friends, family, and all our team, it's not where you start, it's where you finish. Our team is resilient. We've worked night and day trying to figure out what we need to do to make the difference in the rules package. 

"It's finally starting to show over the last three or four races. We've had a really fast race car, but I've had zero confidence all year."

The key to the confidence is having a car that will perform well in all conditions. Hartford believes he's got one now. 

"I'm starting to get confidence back," Hartford admitted. "I think now we have a car that can run in any condition. We can run in the top. You can't always run at the top. But Seattle, we had a chance to go to the pole. We had an electrical malfunction, and we ended up not getting the pole, but we knew tonight, coming into here that if we could run .51 it could hold."

Hartford believes Saturday's two sessions will enable the Pro Stock cars to run quicker. 

Up until this point, there wasn't an area off limits when it came to "fixing" his car. 

"We switched manifolds, and we switched cars," Hartford said. "Give us our old manifolds back and our old car back, we would've been fine. No, it's been a complete combination of everything.  To be honest with you, take our book from last year of all of our notes and get rid of most of them. We had to relearn how to race them with this combination and part of the problem is that we're stubborn." 

 

 

4 - HE'S NOT DOING THE CHASING - Last weekend, Chase Van Sant earned his place in drag racing history by stopping an unstoppable Gaige Herrera. Friday night in Sonoma, he was the unstoppable one. 

On the eve of the GETTRX All-star Callout, Van Sant proved himself to be the rider to beat by running a 6.768, 197 run that put him in the provisional No. 1 position. Last weekend, he earned his first NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle title. If Friday's run holds, it will be his first No. 1 qualifier. 

"It's been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks here, but, yeah, it's cool to knock out my first provisional No. 1 qualifier," Van Sant said. "Obviously, I know the Vance & Hines bike had some issues getting down the track and things like that. So, tomorrow, it's definitely going to be a little bit more of a battle,"

Van Sant races in the Angie Smith in the first round of Saturday's Call-out. 

"We've gone back and forth several times, and it seems like it's always a good race between us," Van Sant said. "The Matt Smith bikes are running really strong right now. They had a really good performance in Seattle, and I don't see a reason why they wouldn't be fast here tomorrow, too."

 

 

 

 

5 - CALL 'EM OUT - NHRA apparently wanted chippyness for the GETTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle Callout, and they got it. It didn't take long before the smack talk took center stage. 

Gaige Herrera, the dominant rider of the last two seasons, had the first choice of opponents and wasted little time in calling out a competitor he believes has been one of his overwhelming critics. 

"There's been a lot of talk on social media, this and that about the class not doing good and it's all came down to one person causing it," Herrera said. "If you know who you are, go ahead and come out, and we're going to settle on the track tomorrow."

Matt Smith knew he was the rider with whom Herrera had referenced. Smith had stated on the record he was going to call out Steve Johnson just because the animated racer got on his nerves. 

"I might have a shot at calling Steve Johnson out second round because I'm going to tattoo [Gaige's] butt and put him on the trailer, and I'm going to make Vance & Hines feel like they made the wrong pick here."

Of course, Smith couldn't leave his allegations of Vance & Hines sandbagging alone.

"They're going to leave the sandbags at the truck on this match-up, I can tell you that," Smith said. "And if they don't, he's going to be going back wishing that they left the sandbags out."

Herrera didn't waste the opportunity to fire back at his adversary. 

"Hey, I'll be sure to bring one of the sandbags to dry up all those tears, right?" Herrera responded. 

Herrera's decision gave the green light to Hector Arana Jr., to pick Johnson, a rider who has aggravated him to no end. 

While the first two selections might have been expected, it was the selection of teammates that totally caught John Hall off guard when Jianna Evaristo selected him. 

"We talked about it," Evaristo explained. "We really did some strategy going back and forth and tried to look at how everything would play out. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that at least one of our bikes go to the next round."

There might have been a strategy meeting, but Hall said he wasn't part of it. 

"I had no idea," Hall said. "No idea at all. I didn't know we had a strategy meeting."

The remaining two riders were Angie Smith and Chase Van Sant. It was as if all the smack-talking inventory had been used up once  Smith got her chance to choose. 

"I can't talk any smack to him because he's such a great competitor and he does a good job," Angie Smith said. "He is Tom Brady because we always refer to him as the Tom Brady at Pro Stock Motorcycle. So all in all, I think we're going to do our best to have a couple bikes in second round. I have a fast bike, Chase has a fast bike. So, you know what? Hopefully, I'll turn the win light on, and I know he hopes the same for himself."

The first round of the GETTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle All-Star Callout takes place at noon Pacific, with the semifinals at 1:45 p.m. and the finals at 2:55 p.m. A special broadcast highlighting the specialty race will take place at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Saturday on FS1.

 

 

 

 

7 - MIKE SALINAS RETURNS - Back in March, Scrappers Racing made the announcement that driver and team patriarch Make Salinas would take a leave of absence and hand the driving chores over to daughter and Top Alcohol Dragster racer Jasmine Salinas. 

Sonoma is the home track for the Salinas family. 

"I'm pretty good, just healing myself up and just got a new oil pump in and we're ready to go," Salinas said. "Weirder than heck being at the track and outside the car, but love all the fans coming out, see the family, and see everybody race, and it's fun to watch them go. And excited to see everybody out here."

Salinas' substitute has handled the role admirably. At least this is how Salinas sees it. 

"I'm very proud of her and Jianna," he said. "They're doing a great job and we're looking forward to big things for them."

 

 

 

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8 - CLINCHED: PROCK, ANDERSON, GLENN - Just by taking the tree, three more racers clinched their way into the Countdown to the Championship on points, and not the participation-trophy method of running all the races. 

Last weekend, Gaige Herrera became the first racer to clinch a Countdown to the Championship berth. On Friday, he was joined by Funny car racer Austin Prock, and Pro Stock teammates Greg Anderson and points leader Dallas Glenn. 

"Unbelievable," Prock said. "This team is a testament to the outstanding job they've done all year, and it sure has been a fun race car to drive. Years don't come by like this very often."

Prock has hoisted the trophy in four of the season’s first 11 NHRA tour events, qualified No. 1 in all but three starts, and earned five wins in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge,

8 - OMG, NO FREAKING WAY - For all of the bravado Austin Prock has shown in his rookie Funny car season, he's entitled to an off-day, something he clearly had on Friday at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals.  Prock’s streak of eight consecutive best-of-session qualifying runs came to an abrupt end.

He was 16th of 18 cars in Sonoma with a 4.659, 173.27 best. 

9 - STEVE JOHNSON'S 500 IS A HISTORY MAKER - Any time you're a and  can reach 500 races, it is a milestone, but when you are the first in your in your whole class ... it's a completely new level. 

Johnson was seventh quickest with a 6.893, 191.35 pass. 

Any way Johnson dissects his career, his professional debut at the 1987 NHRA Summernationals in Englishtown, N.J., and left his racers and the race fans with an unforgettable experience. 

There were rows of high-dollar haulers, pits comprised of toolboxes, and many crewmen to use them. Then there was Steve Johnson, with his pits tucked away in the corner of Old Bridge Township Raceway, his bike shipped in a crate and tucked away under a flatbed trailer. 

“It was all about one race, man, it really was,” Johnson said, voice cracking in near laughter. “It was like we were street racers, and we were extremely enthusiastic about motorcycles, and then all of a sudden, we had an engine. I had an engine for, I don’t know, over a year, a Vance & Hines engine, and a Pro Stock engine, but I had no motorcycle to put it in. That’s weird even to say. We didn’t even have a motorcycle to put it in.”

Johnson said there were few top-of-the-line chassis, and while there was Gen1 or Gen2 in some body designs, his was as primitive as one could get. 

“Back then, you could have a stock chassis and a long swing arm,” Johnson added. “In theory, if you could ride the bike, it would be a Pro Stocker. That’s hilarious, actually. But, yeah, we were racing, doing whatever we were doing.”

When the NHRA summoned the bikes to the staging lanes, there was legend after legend: Terry Vance, Dave Schultz, John Myers, “Pizza” John Mafaro -- and then there was Johnson. The one thing that put them on a level plane with Johnson was that they all parked in the dirt. 

“There was a flatbed trailer, and they put my crate underneath the flatbed trailer,” Johnson explained. “So when it started raining, it rained over there, believe it or not, and we all just crouched under the trailer. Then we left the box open, and out of the box, we had two orange extension cords and tools. We didn’t even have a toolbox. We just had tools.”

With the leadership of Vance and Schultz, the early Pro Stock Motorcycle competitors were fighting for their place within the overwhelming NHRA community with a professional appearance in uniforms and equipment. Then there was Johnson, who was just happy to be there. 

“The funniest thing of the whole story is when we were all done, we were all proud, we were all happy, especially after we qualified, and then we won the first round,” Johnson explained. "We forgot one important detail."

While winning his first career round of the NHRA competition and finishing as a quarterfinalist, it quickly resonated with Johnson that he had an even more significant issue looming. 

“We were all done, we’re like, 'Shoot, we never thought about how to get the bike back,'” Johnson admitted. “That never crossed our mind.”

10 - COMMUNICATION IS KEY - Jason Rupert rolled into the NHRA Sonoma Nationals with a company testing the waters of major league drag-racing sponsorship. Race Champions is on the side of Rupert's Mustang-bodied entry for a one-race deal.

Race Communications, based in San Francisco, is California's largest fiber Internet provider.​